Continent-wide drivers of spatial synchrony in breeding demographic structure across wild great tit populations
No Thumbnail Available
Restricted Availability
Date
2025-01-22, 2025-01-22
Persistent identifier of the Data Catalogue metadata
Creator/contributor
Editor
Journal title
Journal volume
Publisher
Publication Type
software
Peer Review Status
Repositories
Access rights
ISBN
ISSN
Description
Variation in age structure influences population dynamics, yet we have limited understanding of the spatial scale at which its fluctuations are synchronised between populations. Using 32 great tit populations, spanning 4○W–33○E and 35–65○N involving >130,000 birds across 67 years, we quantify spatial synchrony in breeding demographic structure (subadult vs. adult breeders) and its drivers. We show that larger clutch sizes, colder winters, and larger beech crops lead to younger populations. We report distance-dependent synchrony of demographic structure, maintained at approximately 650km. Despite covariation with demographic structure, we do not find evidence for environmental variables influencing the scale of synchrony, except for beech masting. We suggest that local ecological and density-dependent dynamics impact how environmental variation interacts with demographic structure, influencing estimates of the environment's effect on synchrony. Our analyses demonstrate the operation of synchrony in demographic structure over large scales, with implications for age-dependent demography in populations.